


We'll Meet Again

by dragons_and_angels



Series: MASH Fics [5]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-War, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-02-29 12:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18777982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragons_and_angels/pseuds/dragons_and_angels
Summary: Trapper sees Hawkeye at a medical conference after the war and doesn't know what to say.





	We'll Meet Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thinlizzy2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/gifts).



> Thank you so much to thinlizzy for the prompt, I had so many ideas for the reunion after the war!

Trapper John McIntyre stared down at his drink. Gin and soda without the gin. He was trying to cut down on the drinking but he supposed being in a bar wasn't a good place to test himself. He had come down here for some liquid courage but had chickened out at the last minute. Hawkeye Pierce was staying in this same hotel, attending the same medical conference at him and the whole time Trapper had avoided him whenever possible. He had been slipping into talks just before the door closed and keeping his eye on the grey head of his once best friend, trying and failing to work up the courage to talk to him. Hawkeye had been his best self here at the conference, laughing and joking with everyone around him, while Trapper had done nothing but skulk around the edges. 

Jesus, if he wasn't going to talk to Hawkeye and he wasn't going to talk to any other doctors, then he might as well go home. It wasn't like there was any reason for him to stay. 

Trapper finished the last of his soda and stood up, rubbing a hand over his face. A early night and then he'll head home in the morning. He would only be missing a day of the conference but at least he'll be back home. And he knew Hawkeye was doing alright, he had seen it with his own eyes. That had to be worth something. 

"Trapper?" The voice had him freezing in place. He knew that voice, four years wasn't going to let him forget it that easily. It was the voice he had always expected to hear when he woke up in the morning, only to get a jolt when Louise would greet him instead, or worse, when there would only be silence. 

He turned slowly and this time when he looked at Hawkeye, he was looking straight back. Hawkeye's hair was completely grey and there were fine lines around his mouth that Trapper knew hadn't been there before, but his eyes were just as blue as they had ever been, wide with surprise as he stared at Trapper. 

"Heya, Hawk," Trapper said quietly as he put his hands in his pockets. He wasn't sure how to approach him. After everything that had happened he hadn't known how to broach the silence between them and the longer it went on, the worst it got. Knowing how it looked from Hawkeye's point of view didn't help, all he could think about was Hawkeye thinking he had been abandoned by Trapper without a word. 

"Trapper, you're... " Words failed Hawkeye and he waved his hand in Trapper's general direction. A man approached from behind Hawkeye, two drinks in his hand and nudged Hawkeye's shoulder with his own. He was a handsome enough fellow, with a strong jaw and blonde hair only starting to go grey. He was rather like a more handsome version of Frank and Trapper had to shove down the urge to push him into moving traffic. Jealousy was not a nice emotion. 

"Pierce, what are you hanging around here for?" The man laughed as if he had said something funny and Trapper made his face as blank as possible when Hawkeye turned away to look at his friend. 

"Martins, this is Doctor John McIntyre. We worked together over in Korea." Hawkeye's voice was genial and friendly, but completely fake. So little words could encompass what they were to each other, at least on Trapper's end, but Hawkeye's answer seemed to assuage his companion's curiosity. Too bad it told Trapper nothing about how he really felt. "I might have to take a raincheck on that drink, Martins. Got a lot to catch up with John." 

It felt weird to hear his actual name out of Hawkeye's mouth, the only time he had heard Hawkeye use it was when he called him 'Trapper John'. 

Martins smiled easily and Hawkeye smiled back, giving Trapper that uneasy feeling of wanting to strangle someone again. He squashed it down, ashamed of that feeling, and smiled as sincerely as he could when Hawkeye turned to look at him. Martins wandered off, after saying a quick goodbye to both of them, and Trapper jerked his head at the door, not wanting to take his hands out of his pockets. 

"I've got a room upstairs." As soon as he said it, Trapper bit his lip. They didn't talk about that time over in Korea, when Frank had been away in Tokyo for two days, and Trapper felt strange thinking about it now. After it had happened, Hawkeye had gone back to his normal self and never said anything about it and Trapper had never dared to bring it up. But ever since he had thought Hawkeye dead for a time, all he could think about was that night. 

"So do I," Hawkeye said, his voice neutral. "But let's go to yours." 

There was silence between them as they took the elevator upstairs. Trapper didn't know how to break it. Every time he thought about a conversation starter he remembered how they had left things and the words died on his tongue. Trapper's hotel room was clean, the bed made by housekeeping and he gestured Hawkeye to come in before shutting the door behind him. There was only one office chair but Trapper pulled it out for Hawkeye before sitting on the bed. 

The silence grew again. "Trapper," Hawkeye said quietly. He had always been the braver and more forward of the two of them. Trapper could only be glad that he was using his nickname again. "I'm glad to see you." 

Trapper had been avoiding Hawkeye's eyes at this point, wondering if he could get away with not looking at his once-friend for the whole of this conversation. As soon as Hawkeye said this, though, his gaze leapt to meet Hawkeye's. "Really?" It was almost too good to be true. 

Hawkeye didn't look happy though. Instead he nodded grimly. "Yes, I did. I probably would have missed you less if you had written." 

The barb hit home and Trapper winced, looking away again. His mouth was dry and he swallowed, unsure about where to start. 

"I didn't know what to write," he said and instantly knew it was the wrong thing to say. 

"You didn't know what to write." It sounded even more ridiculous when Hawkeye repeated it in that blank voice of his. "How about 'glad I'm home, wish you could be here' or was that too much for you?" 

"No, I didn't." Trapper bit his tongue, this time out of anger more than anything else. Hawkeye was doing that thing where he made the assumption and it would take a miracle to get him out of that rut. "I didn't know what to say and when I did know what to say, my letter came back." He turned his head away completely, willing himself not to tear up. He was a grown man, for God's sake, he should be able to get through this explanation without crying. "It had been marked as KIA and then I called your dad and he confirmed it. I gave him my condolences and told him to let me know when the funeral was going to be." 

"But he didn't because he found out I wasn't dead," Hawkeye said. The blank tone had disappeared from his voice but he didn't sound anything but curious. Trapper still couldn't look at him so instead he stared down at his hands. 

"I was going to call, to find out what was going on, but then Louise got sick and I just put it down to the funeral being just family or something." Trapper's hands were dry from the amount of washing at work he did and when he clenched them, the knuckles bleached white. He didn't like to think about that time. 

"Louise was sick?" Hawkeye's voice changed within a second, sympathy nearly overwhelming Trapper. 

"Cancer," he replied shortly. Hawkeye was a doctor, he knew what that meant, how bad the prognosis was. "She survived, despite the odds, but afterward she wanted to live her life as she wanted to. Which didn't include me." She had coached it in better terms than that, had been nice and sympathetic as she sat him down at the kitchen table and said that life was too short for the two of them to be in a marriage that they didn't want to be in. Trapper hadn't the desire to speak up and deny this, so he had kept quiet and only spoken up when they had talked about custody of the girls. 

"She didn't," Hawkeye said in reply. Trapper shrugged and finally looked up at him. Hawkeye was staring at him, completely aghast, his mouth open and his eyes wide. "She wouldn't do that. I mean, you two always had a... volatile relationship but you loved each other." 

Trapper held back the words he wanted to say and looked away from Hawkeye. It was a lot easier to lie to his face when he wasn't actually looking at him. "Yeah, well. She didn't want that no more." 

"Trapper." Hawkeye's eyes were narrowed when Trapper worked up the courage to look back at him. "I shared a tent with you for a year, do you think I don't know when you're pulling a fast one on me?" 

Trapper hesitated. There was a lot he was hiding from Hawkeye but for good reason. Yes, he had been good when Weston had shown up in the camp and confessed all but there was a lot of difference between objectively supporting something and supporting something when it was thrown in your face. Hawkeye might be okay with homosexuals in the general sense but he might not be so happy about one being in love with him. Trapper had seen it often enough and he knew full well that when he hit on a guy, he would have to make sure that he was one hundred percent sure the other guy was the same, otherwise getting punched would be the least of his worries.

"Hawkeye, Louise and I weren't really working for a long time." It had started before Korea even and the war had only made it ten times worse. Trapper hadn't been able to handle being back in civilian life so good and the fact that he felt like he had abandoned Hawkeye hadn't made that feeling any better. "We weren't ever in love with each other properly but we liked each other well enough. And it had worked for the most part." If he was being brutally honest with himself, it had worked far better for him than for Louise. She had her family and her friends further up north in Vermont and the only reason she came down here in the first place was for Trapper's job. When the divorce had gone through, she had gone back to her parents' house, a look of relief on her face. Trapper didn't have that so much. 

God, he needed a drink right now. 

"Still, I know you were looking forward to seeing Becky and Cathy again," Hawkeye said, all empathy and big blue eyes that would suck Trapper in again before he even knew it was happening. 

"I see them now still, but mostly on my days off." All the driving up to where Louise and the girls were staying along with his shifts was making Trapper permanently exhausted but it was worth it to see his daughters again. Louise had been good about custody, happy for him to take the girls whenever he had a day off considering he didn't have a lot of those, but it wasn't the same as seeing them everyday, even it was just catching a glimpse of them when they were sleeping. 

Hawkeye's hand was on his shoulder and Trapper ducked his head, willing himself not to cry. He rubbed his nose fiercely and wondered why he was trying so hard to hold it back. It wasn't like Hawkeye hadn't seen him cry before, when Kim had been returned to his mother, Trapper had clung to Hawkeye that night and cried as soon as he knew they were alone. 

But he didn't want Hawkeye to see him as this crumpled mess of a person and think he was glad he had left when he did. 

"So, yeah," he said, in an attempt to get the conversation back up. "I thought you were KIA, then Margaret called me when she was back stateside and told me you were still alive. By that point Louise was on the mend but she was starting to talk about afterward and divorce and I couldn't... I couldn't split my focus."

"Wait, you didn't know until after the war was finished?" Trapper raised his head to see Hawkeye's mouth hanging open. He shook his head and blinked in surprise when Hawkeye swore. Back in Korea, Frank was more likely to swear than Hawkeye was. "God, Trapper." And they were hugging, or rather Hawkeye was hanging on for dear life and Trapper couldn't get past the surprise long enough to hug back, at least not before Hawkeye's head moved and he felt the brush of Hawkeye's nose against his neck. Then he found it hard to let go. 

"Sorry I didn't write to you," Hawkeye said, muffled against Trapper's shirt. He still hadn't let Trapper go, arms around his waist and head buried in the crook between neck and shoulder. Trapper was now hugging Hawkeye back, across the shoulders and pulling him upwards and into Trapper as much as possible. "I was angry and then I was hurt and then it just got longer and longer and my reasons just got stupider and stupider." 

"I know how you felt there," Trapper joked, but it came out more watery than he would have liked. Tears were streaming down his face now, silent but copious and Trapper tightened his grip on Hawkeye so he couldn't see. Trapper was pretty sure he could feel the wet patch soaking the shoulder of his shirt though. 

They didn't move for several minutes. Trapper knew he should pull back, at least get Hawkeye off his knees so they didn't completely hate him in the morning, but Hawkeye was alive and pressed up against him. It would take a stronger man that Trapper to resist that or even to partially reject it. The hug was going on far too long, especially for straight men, but Trapper couldn't even mention the fact. 

When they finally pulled back, Hawkeye had red eyes and tearstains on his cheeks. Trapper, helpless to do anything else, brushed at one of the tearmarks with his thumb, only for Hawkeye to press his cheek into Trapper's palm and hum a little. In contentment, if Trapper wasn't mistaken. 

"I'm so glad we ran into each other," Trapper said, quietly as if if he said anything out loud, the moment would be broken and Hawkeye would be running screaming out of the room. 

"God, Trapper, me too." Hawkeye spoke at a normal volume but his voice was hoarse after his crying. "I was so happy you had been able to go home but I missed you so much. BJ sometimes helped but he wasn't you and I felt like I always had to protect him. And after Henry, I just wanted to make sure you got home safe as well." 

Trapper had to push down the spark of jealousy that flared up when Hawkeye mentioned BJ. Margaret had laid into him, before he had gotten a chance to explain, and talked a lot about BJ Hunnicutt, who had seemed to be everything that Trapper wasn't. Innocent and faithful, it was no wonder Hawkeye had taken to him so quickly. 

"I missed you too." There was more to say, more that Trapper had to explain but how could he say anything when it would only inch around the subject he wanted to avoid at all costs. He didn't remove his hand from Hawkeye's face though, he seemed comfortable with it and Trapper found himself not wanting to move it. "What was it like after I left? I heard you got rid of Frank and Margaret got married..." There were many other things Margaret told him, as the end of the war just got worse and worse for them. 

Something raw flashed on Hawkeye's face, tightening his jaw and wiping away any trace of a smile. He didn't meet Trapper's eyes but he did answer the question. "It wasn't good." Trapper dropped his hand as his friend's bearing changed. 

Hawkeye didn't have to say that he didn't want to talk about it with him, that much was obvious from his posture. Trapper wondered if he would ever be fully trusted by Hawkeye again and then shied away from the answer. He didn't want to think about what he had lost when he had returned home, because that would just lead to him thinking about what he lost when he was home. You knew it was a bad day when you thought that staying in Korea might have worked out better for you. 

There was something on Trapper's face that had realisation lighting up Hawkeye's and he held out a hand. "No, Trap, it was good that you weren't there." He winced. "Not what I meant. It was going to be awful no matter what and I'm glad you were away from it." 

Trapper gave him a half-hearted smile. He knew that Hawkeye meant what he said, but at the same time that didn't stop him from feeling guilty. And he knew that if the positions would be reversed, the two of them would be saying the exact same thing. 

"I'm sorry about Louise," Hawkeye said. "And the divorce." 

"Me too." Trapper looked at Hawkeye and smiled. "But I'm more sorry about the former than the latter." Especially now Hawkeye was right in front of him. It was like a weight had been removed from his shoulders and he was finally able to smile.


End file.
